Ken Leibow

I always like April’s article to include underwriting because the largest life insurance underwriting conference, AHOU, which is April 16-19 this year in Hollywood, FL. I met with Samplemed about predictive modeling for underwriting. As life insurance becomes more digitized, trust and fraud become very real, so I reached out to TransUnion. Wellness—engaging policyholders—is also covered in this article as I contacted Medix Global about their mobile app and medical services. It’s a growing trend way beyond wellness but taking it to the next level including medical prevention and early detection. All three of these topics do have an ultimate connection to underwriting and claims as AI, identity fraud protection, and the use of health IOT data are trending.

Building Trust with Consumers when Digitizing the Life Insurance Process
Digitalization continues to be an important trend in life insurance, although this sector of the industry is traditionally more conservative and has lagged behind personal lines in adopting new technology and channels. Traditionally, 90 percent or more of life insurance policies have been purchased through insurance agents, but the TransUnion Annual Insurance Outlook Survey reveals that that has truly changed in 2023: 40 percent of respondents who shopped for life insurance did so online or via app, and that holds across generations.

With this increase in digitalization, the ability to secure trust across channels and deliver seamless experiences for consumers via improved identity and fraud products is critical. TransUnion orchestrates proprietary personal identifiable information (PII), device information and behavioral insights to make trust possible between businesses and consumers. This has several potential benefits:

• Improve customer conversion: Increase return on customer acquisition programs, reduce abandonment and grow revenue.
• Reduce fraud losses​: Mitigate risk and secure trust at every stage of the consumer lifecycle—reducing operational costs, false positives, and manual reviews.
• Enhance consumer satisfaction​: Seamless experiences are fast, easy, safe and secure, allowing you to exceed consumer expectations and increase loyalty with a friction-right process.

Carriers can also extend this trust process with improved communications and enhanced outreach while streamlining call center or agent outbound operations. With the right solution, you can make every touchpoint count through authoritative identity information and phone number authentication. You will enable trusted communications and reduce the possibility of your calls being identified as “spam” by adding your brand and verifying your identity on legitimate outbound calls. You can also block fraudulent calls (spoofed numbers from fraudsters) from being displayed to your customers. Call center efficiencies allow you to streamline connectivity for a better customer experience while also improving agent productivity. TransUnion’s solution has deep integration with phone companies to power greater reach across the telecom ecosystem. This was proved out by an Omdia (2021) survey that showed customers using TransUnion’s TruContact branded communications saw a 90-100 percent decrease in spam complaints. Overall, having a unified and comprehensive suite of identity and communications solutions will improve consumer trust and strengthen the business relationship. To learn more about TransUnion solutions for life insurance visit https://www.transunion.com/industry/insurance/life-insurance.

Demystifying Predictive Models for Life Underwriting
In days of AI and ChatGPT, more stable markets such as ours—the life insurance market—question themselves whether technology can really predict medical fraud and claims, or should it all be just considered a trend to areas which may be less impacted by bias like marketing or sales teams.

There is a lot of data out there on consumer behavior. It is known that, due to data privacy protection and unstructured data, health statistics remain in a black box. Without accurate structured health data, no model can be made with trustable accuracy.

No one has that data except medical providers. For this reason, I would ask you to pay particular attention to the new set of Predictive Models launched by Samplemed. With over 35+ years of underwriting, more than 500k recorded tele-interviews, thousands of medical reports collected, and a double of automated underwriting cases, they do have privileged anonymized data that no else in the market has. With its mass of specific life policyholder underwriting data and raw interviews, it unveiled in the market their own line of Predictive Models with individual scores for benefits: Death, Accidental Death, Disability due to Accident or Illness, Critical Illness, and Surgical Risks.

Their Life Predictive Model belongs to the category of supervised classification models. The choice of the model’s covariates is based on market and underwriting choice of the client, ensuring that each company will receive a unique model adapted to its own portfolio. The predictive models are available with all other features you need for underwriting life at Samplemed’s newest platform, the S.360. Used by reinsurers and insurers around the globe, it can perform automated underwriting, video-interviews, tele-interviews, accelerated underwriting, request lab exams, and consult underwriting manuals in a single flow of cases. All in a user friendly and data smart way.

All cases will be tagged down with Samplemed’s own rich self-developed risks taxonomy, the new life insurance ICD, which will ensure that no medical data will remain unstructured and unused.

In this way, a natural product of the use of the platform is the company’s own private Life Data Lake, where all medical data from all applicants remain structured and anonymized at the reach of data science department or business analysts. It is a platform to ensure deeper insights and give you the base to produce, with Samplemed, your own new predictive models. Find out more about Samplemed’s Life predictive modeling at https://en.samplemed.com.br/underwritingsolutions.

Leveraging Technology to Keep Policyholders Healthy
In 2006, Sigal Atzmon founded Medix with a mission to improve the way healthcare is provided globally, with a focus on the accessibility, implementation, and sustainability of quality care. A leading provider of innovative, high quality health management solutions, Medix has since expanded to serve close to nine million customers across 90+ countries with offices in New York, London, Munich, Hong Kong, Mumbai, New Delhi, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Melbourne, Jakarta, Bangkok, and Tel Aviv. Medix delivers personalized and data-driven health responses using a range of digital health tools, 300+ in-house doctors and nurses, and a global quality accredited network of 4,500+ specialists and 2,000+ hospitals for expert consultation.

Acting as the essential hub of the health journey, Medix delivers impactful responses combining the best digital tools with real human presence for any health need throughout life, including medical prevention and diagnostics, medical management and navigation, rehabilitation, mental health, and telehealth. All services are accessible via the Medix app—a personal, holistic, one-stop medical command center that puts patients at the helm of their unique health journey. The Medix App unlocks new insights and actions by gaining a deeper understanding of your full medical profile—from proprietary health assessments to record scanning and filing to lab trends to real-time doctor consultations—and connecting it all with unique algorithms and medical data sets built over two decades.

It is important to recognize a more holistic approach to healthcare that invests in prevention, so people stay healthier for longer. Wellness and lifestyle recommendations are an important start, but it is essential to go one step further and offer personalized clinically focused interventions. Medix formulates personalized health plans based on a user’s family history, genetics, screenings, and detailed health assessments. Fifty-three percent of users who have gone through the prevention service avoided or reduced unnecessary screenings and 28 percent indicated a medium to high risk to develop a (new/previously unknown) metabolic syndrome condition.

Telemedicine and digital tools, combined with a human touch, can empower individuals to take ownership over their long term health, but can also increase accessibility to quality care and reduce costs. Utilizing medical management and navigation services helps manage costs by providing patients with streamlined, coordinated care. Medix users have achieved better medical outcomes through 360-degree multidisciplinary case management and navigation. Twenty percent of cases have resulted in a change of diagnosis, 43 percent have resulted in a change in treatment plan, and in 18 percent of cases costly unnecessary major treatments and procedures have been avoided.

By offering multidisciplinary continuity of care around the clock, Medix optimizes clinical pathways and reduces costs while also offering ongoing assessment tools that reduce claims and risks to health over the long term. Medix has demonstrably raised standards, optimized care, and improved outcomes worldwide. On average globally Medix is saving close to $6,000 USD per case managed. You can get more information on medical prevention and early detection by visiting https://medix-global.com/.

What’s exciting about 2023 is not just new technology, but the evolution of the platforms we use today to sell life insurance and annuities. Enhancing successful software solution platforms to help advisors sell more insurance continues to be released. Those that may have made the investment last year will see even more return this year. If you are looking for new sales software solutions, you will realize the new features will help advisors with their practice and assist IMOs and BGAs to recruit more agents.

Term Life Sales Platform to Permanent Products and Long Term Care
BackNine Insurance continues to innovate in the BGA space with some exciting new technology that has been made available to agents. I would like to highlight three new developments to their digital platform.

First on the list is the ability to quote, compare and apply for three types of long term care insurance. BackNine is the first and only company to bring long term care to the digital forefront and has been rapidly adding new features over the past few months. Within Quote & Apply, their consumer-facing eApplication platform, agents and/or clients can simultaneously compare life insurance with a long term care rider, traditional LTCI, and linked benefit, all side-by-side. Every quote has a five-minute eApplication to facilitate the opportunity. This is all from the agent’s existing website or one BackNine provides complimentary. Having the ability to give clients a full overview of these products and seamlessly pivot between illustration and product designs on the spot creates a better overall sales process and leads to higher closing rates. With the long term care tax situation that we saw in Washington soon coming to other states, this solution came at the perfect time and will enable agents to handle a massive influx of long term care business entirely online and with maximum efficiency.

BackNine has also recently added Banner’s Instant Issue Term to Quote & Apply. This recent integration is the perfect marriage between technologies and is revolutionizing the way life insurance is bought and sold. Agents and clients can now get quotes in seconds, apply and be approved instantly. This product has face amount limits of up to $2M and is available in every state currently except New York. Contracting is just-in-time and getting setup on the platform is quick and easy.

Last but not least, BackNine has created a permanent insurance platform that makes buying and selling IUL more intuitive than ever before through the Quote & Apply platform. Agents and clients can now illustrate both accumulation and protection IUL with easy-to-understand graphs showing contributions and cash value accumulation. With multiple carriers to choose from, comparing IUL products and pivoting between illustration designs has never been easier. Never before in the industry has a client been able to run their own IUL quote and complete an eApplication all in just a few minutes.

For more information on these solutions or to learn more about BackNine and how to get started, please contact BackNine Brokerage Director Ian Ryan at (516) 512-1595 or ian@back9ins.com.

Selling Annuities on a One-Stop-Platform
Before Annuities Genius, financial advisors faced a daunting task of sorting through thousands of annuity products to determine which one was the best option for their clients. In an age where the Best Interest Standard requires financial advisors to provide the best possible recommendation, this was a time-consuming and complex process. With so many options available it was challenging to ensure that the annuity product being recommended was truly the best fit for the client’s needs.

But with Annuities Genius, financial advisors have a trusted product validation process to determine client suitability. This software makes it easier to compare annuity products and determine which one is the best fit for your clients. By having access to real-time market data, comprehensive information on annuity products, and advanced portfolio management tools, advisors can make informed decisions with confidence.

It offers top-notch tools for annuity product comparison and calculation of guaranteed and projected income riders. With the ability to generate side-by-side comparison reports, clients can make informed decisions based on a clear understanding of the differences between multiple products. Additionally, the software provides index performance and backtesting, allowing users to see the historical performance of indexes and test them with different interest rates for evidence-based decision making.

In addition, Annuities Genius helps financial advisors keep impeccable, comprehensive records of their annuity recommendations. This software makes it simple to track the performance of annuity products, including underlying investments, risk and return potential, and overall portfolio diversification. This helps advisors provide a transparent and thorough record of their recommendations to their clients.

Finally, Annuities Genius includes an all-in-one compliant sales process. This software helps financial advisors remain compliant with industry regulations and standards, ensuring that they are offering the best possible recommendations to their clients. With Annuities Genius, financial advisors can feel confident that they are providing the best possible service to their clients while also staying up-to-date with industry standards and regulations.

Unlock the power of transparency and build trust with your clients. With Annuities Genius software, you can easily demonstrate the difference between annuity products and show your clients that you have their best interests in mind. This software enables you to provide side-by-side comparisons of any product type, ensuring complete transparency and making it easier for you to make informed decisions. Upgrade your practice and take the first step towards earning your clients’ trust. Learn more by visiting http://www.annuitiesgenius.com.

Turning Inforce Business into New Sales Opportunities through Insurtech
You know through your own hard work and dedication that building up a book of business is a challenging task that takes time. Each client in your current portfolio is an important relationship you’ve built from the ground up. Once you’ve invested the time and effort it takes to build a new client relationship, it’s important to continue strengthening that relationship over time.

Keeping that relationship strong means keeping in regular contact with your clients. But you don’t want those recurring points of contact to become boring or repetitive. Advisors need to think bigger and identify more ways to meaningfully engage with their clients to consistently deliver the value that instills more trust and might even lead to a referral or two.

The principle of making client engagement more meaningful is one of the founding principles of Proformex. Its life insurance engagement and servicing platform is designed to give advisors fingertip access to information about their clients and policies that is actionable. By giving advisors the right information on the right policies at the right time, Proformex makes it easy to understand which client relationships need your attention—like those who have an upcoming term conversion deadline, an upcoming premium payment due, or a policy that is lapsing prematurely.

By staying ahead of important milestones like the ones mentioned above, you’re not only providing excellent service to the clients you’ve worked so hard to obtain, but you’re also doing yourself the favor of staying top of mind. It’s often cited that an individual will make a life insurance-related decision or purchase about seven times on average throughout their lifespan, whether that’s a purchase for themselves, a family member, or even a business venture. If you’re consistently building that relationship with your client and staying present, they’re going to think of you first when a need arises.

What does that mean for you? A stronger relationship, more assets under management, and business growth without the time and labor of seeking new client relationships. Your client relationships are the most important asset for your business. Treat them as such and the value you provide to your clients will be returned to you time and time again through better relationships, more referrals, and more business written through you. Above all, knowing your clients are always protected is a great way to safeguard your relationships and your business for the future and whatever it brings. Visit http://Proformex.com to learn more.

Protecting your data, implementing cybersecurity and preventing attackers who commit fraud is essential to staying in business. There are stricter security compliance requirements needed to be implemented this year in the financial and insurance industry. In this article, you will learn about the seriousness of the vulnerability of your business and necessary security solutions.

Preventing Fraud Attacks
According to the 2022 LexisNexis Global State of Fraud and Identity report, fraud attacks are following the growth of the digital economy in almost lock step, with fraudsters seeking out new vulnerabilities to exploit. Some notable learnings from the report include:

• One in every 12 account creations represents an attack.
• Although bot attack volume increased across all touchpoints of the customer journey, there has been a massive 247 percent increase in automated attacks focused on password resets.
• Organizations that cannot link consumers across the dimensions of physical, digital and behavioral identity will find it more difficult to thwart synthetic and stolen identity fraud on a global scale. In one example cited, LexisNexis Risk Solutions identified a fraud ring leveraging 63 unique phone numbers and physical locations tied back to seven IP addresses and one email.
• Social engineering attacks are among the fastest growing cybersecurity threats in both developed and emerging markets. Conventional fraud controls that use IP addresses, device and network attributes are less effective on their own to thwart these scams. Adding multiple prevention tactics, such as behavioral biometrics layered with device and digital identity data elements, offers a stronger defense against fraud.

LexisNexis Risk Solutions has made substantial investments in bringing together a world-class fraud and identity platform, including an award winning ThreatMetrix repository of global digital transaction intelligence that provides insights on more than 1.4 billion unique digital identities. Their new Emailage for Insurance solution uses email intelligence as a core risk identifier and provides a holistic email risk score and confidence analysis during various stages of the insurance policy lifecycle.

It’s clear that fraud is here to stay, and as the digital landscape continues to evolve, so will bad actors’ tactics. At LexisNexis Risk Solutions, they believe that a shared intelligence network that uses contextualized data linking insights from digital, physical and behavioral elements and shared risk events across the community is a powerful tool for preventing fraud.
Organizations that avail themselves of the latest technologies and stay on top of emerging trends will be best positioned to fight fraud now and in the future. Adopting solutions that are flexible, scalable and adaptable should help insurers stay ahead of ever-changing fraud vectors. Implemented correctly, these solutions can also be used to enrich customer experience and satisfaction, ultimately driving top line revenue.

Data Security and eSignature Compliance
Paperclip Inc., as provider of innovative solutions to the broker community, recognizes that there is a large gap between meeting cybersecurity compliance and true cybersecurity. Compliance consists of recommendations and mandates around best practices. It’s impossible for compliance bodies to account for the intricate nuances of each business operation. The goal of compliance is to guide an organization to implementing solid, measurable foundations. Like a house, you don’t stop building once the foundation is poured.

When we asked Mike Bridges, president and COO of Paperclip, “How would you explain Paperclip’s position on compliance vs. security?” he explained: “Paperclip is a lot like the companies we service. We have core compliance requirements for securing the terabytes of critical data and documents we manage. A little over six years ago, Paperclip found that the compliance requirements around encryption just weren’t enough. We saw how too many companies with minimal (compliance) required encryption at rest and in transit protection were suffering large, sometimes catastrophic data theft and ransomware attacks. Like those companies, we checked all the compliance checkboxes. We had to do more to secure the high-value, critical data. We had to make sure searchable data always remained encrypted.”

Mike continued, “This led to the creation of our Paperclip SAFE® encryption-in-use solution. SAFE was initially designed to provide a higher level of security for our internal clients. Understanding that Paperclip wasn’t unique and other companies were faced with the same challenge, we released Paperclip SAFE^® to the commercial market. We have a similar story behind our new eM4® Proof of Agreement solution. In short, our clients asked for a better, more cost-effective e-signature solution they could use across a larger array of critical assets that require proof of agreement and tracking.”

Paperclip is now heavily focused on the growth of compliance controls around Privacy and Zero Trust. Many companies look at these changing compliance requirements as standalone concerns. That’s the way most of the compliance documentation is written. In reality, you can’t have Privacy or Zero Trust if you can’t secure the most sensitive data. “Paperclip has deliberately built Paperclip SAFE^® and eM4^® to align with both compliance requirements and robust Privacy and Zero Trust programs as well,” concludes Bridges. To learn more about SAFE, visit http://PaperClip.com.

Regulatory Requirements for a Cybersecurity Program in Financial Services
Cybersecurity is of critical importance in the financial services industry due to the sensitive nature of the data being handled and the regulations that the industry is subject to. Financial institutions are entrusted with their customers’ personal and financial information, and a breach of that information could lead to severe consequences for the institution and the individuals affected

Regulatory bodies such as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), and the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) have established strict guidelines and requirements for cybersecurity in the financial sector to protect consumers and ensure the integrity of the financial system.

All regulations require financial institutions under their jurisdiction to implement a cybersecurity program that includes safeguards, vendor due diligence, risk assessments, employee training, and incident response plans. Most regulations also require annual certification of the cybersecurity program by a senior officer and the completion of regular penetration testing and vulnerability assessments.

The SEC has also issued guidance on cybersecurity for public companies, stating that they must disclose material cybersecurity risks and incidents in their financial filings. This is important as it ensures that investors have the necessary information to make informed decisions about the companies they invest in.

FINRA has issued similar guidance for broker-dealers and investment firms, stating that they must have policies and procedures to protect customer information and prevent, detect, and respond to cyber threats. This includes implementing safeguards such as endpoint protection, firewalls, secure passwords, and regular system updates.

In addition to meeting regulatory requirements, having a solid cybersecurity program is vital for financial institutions to maintain the trust of their customers. A breach of customer information could lead to loss of business and damage to a company’s reputation which can be challenging to recover from. Overall, having a cybersecurity program in the financial services industry cannot be overstated. It is essential for meeting regulatory requirements, protecting sensitive customer information, and maintaining customer confidence. Financial institutions must prioritize cybersecurity to ensure the security and stability of the financial system.
FCI’s cyber experts can provide a free audit of your network. Another area critical to your agency is endpoint security. Most advisors are connecting to your agency/firm site using their mobile devices, which exposes risk to personal information data. You can learn more by visiting http://FCIcyber.com.

What’s the latest innovation in technology for insurance sales? Artificial Intelligence (AI) can be used for lead generation, lead follow-up, strategic marketing, customer retention, and client support. Leveraging AI gives you more control over the sales cycle, helping clients identify hot leads earlier and faster. Artificial intelligence is quickly becoming the most sought-after technology solutions for businesses in every industry. AI can help automate several aspects of your business, freeing up more time and resources for you to focus on revenue generation. I met with Brett Barker, chief sales officer of ATS Global. The conversational AI offered by ATS Global has been helping companies unlock hidden opportunities for businesses for more than 15 years. Let’s look at what this unique technology can do and why it’s worth considering for your business.

What is Conversational AI?
Conversational AI refers to an artificial intelligence system that can understand and respond to natural language input. This type of AI is used by businesses across industries to automate customer service responses, facilitate marketing campaigns, and assist in sales prospecting. By leveraging a powerful conversational AI platform, companies can free up their employees’ time so they can focus on higher-value tasks like revenue generation instead of mundane daily activities like data entry or customer support inquiries.

The Benefits of Conversational AI
By implementing a quality Conversational AI system, businesses can achieve greater efficiency in their day-to-day operations while also creating more meaningful connections with customers. This type of technology enables companies to process orders quickly and accurately without human intervention, identify trends faster so they can improve customer service, and even anticipate customer needs before they arise—all without sacrificing the personal touch that customers expect from businesses today. Additionally, using a conversational AI system helps reduce overhead costs associated with traditional customer service teams as well as eliminates errors due to manual data entry or miscommunication between teams.

Moreover, a quality conversational AI platform, offered by ATS Global, provides deep insights into customer behaviors so companies can better identify key opportunities and craft targeted strategies that will drive growth and maximize ROI. In fact, many companies are seeing over 20 times ROI after implementing their AI assistants. Through its advanced analytics capabilities, ATS Global’s solutions provide actionable insights so businesses can make better decisions faster than ever before.

In short, investing in a powerful conversational AI platform is essential for any business looking to stay competitive in today’s market. With ATS Global’s solutions, you can create efficiencies within your team while also creating meaningful relationships with customers through personalized interactions powered by artificial intelligence. Unlock the potential of Conversational AI and start driving more revenue today! Learn more about ATS Global at http://atsglobal.ai/.

Covr’s Digital Sales Platform a Complete Straight-Through-Process
Coming soon from Covr Financial Technologies is the official launch of Advisor 3.0, the latest version of the insurtech’s flagship technology product. Covr Advisor 3.0 provides a digital omni-channel, multi-carrier, multi-product, complete transaction management and service platform to advisors at their partner firms.

“We are very proud of the new and enhanced capabilities in our Advisor 3.0 platform,” said Ron Alexander, president and head of innovation. “Covr is constantly striving to grow and exceed our partners’ needs, and this latest version of our signature platform is the latest example of those efforts.

Features include embedded tools and journeys such as multi-product needs analysis, redesigned quoting tools and estimators for term, permanent and asset-based long term care, and new illustration management. Advisors on this platform have access to a full policy review journey, and expanded multi-carrier accelerated underwriting. Advisor 3.0 also launches new digital informal case submission, and improvements to licensing and appointment management.

In addition, the product offers 100 percent drop ticket for more than 30 carriers and 600 products. Digital application fulfillment and e-delivery and signature streamline the process for advisors and clients alike. Improved case status delivery on and off platform lets advisors easily track their cases, and a brand-new resource center houses a digital library of product resources, marketing and training materials.

Covr APIs enable seamless integration with any CRM including Salesforce.com, planning software such as MoneyGuide PRO, licensing and suitability/compliance systems, and many others. With Covr Comply, Covr has also launched a turnkey, product-agnostic compliance review unit that can be used alone or embedded in the end-to-end purchasing and transaction process. Also new is Consumer for Advisor, which gives writing agents and financial advisors the ability to send out personalized digital marketing and provide digital application fulfillment in a direct-to-consumer environment inside of the same ecosystem. All cases processed through Covr are displayed for advisors or aggregated at the home office level. Covr can also aggregate all in force policies to be managed in one centralized place with the Covr Insights in force visualization and management tool.

In September, Covr announced that Citi had chosen their technology to simplify the life insurance process for Citi’s U.S. consumer wealth management business. Covr also recently launched Covr Pro, bringing its digital life insurance technology to independent advisors. By signing up online, advisors can get immediate access to the full suite of digital BGA resources including virtual sales support, quoting and needs analysis tools, application fulfillment, case management, products from the leading carriers, and market-leading compensation—all with no production requirements. For details of these digital sales solutions, visit https://covrtech.com/.

Ensight’s Streamline Illustration Workflow Expanded to Hybrid Long Term Care Products
One of the critical business applications of technology over the past two decades is to streamline inefficient back-office processes, unleashing time for firms to refocus on the fundamentals that drive success and revenue. Regarding the wholescale transformation of the illustration (workflow) process across U.S. life distribution, Ensight has perhaps redefined the life insurance illustration experience more than any other software platform over the last several years.

The great news for the industry is that Ensight has now extended its market leading life insurance illustration platform, Ensight Intelligent Quote, to support the hybrid, asset-based long term care products, launching with a broad portfolio of the leading hybrid long term care insurance carriers, including Lincoln Financial, MassMutual, Nationwide, OneAmerica, and Securian Financial.

Ensight’s new hybrid long term care capability streamlines the illustration workflow, enabling case designers and wholesalers to simultaneously run illustrations for the leading products and flexibly benchmark product performance across different dimensions, such as: Monthly long term care benefit; overall long term care benefit pool; indemnity vs reimbursement; and other key areas. Additionally, Ensight is the first and only multi-carrier illustration platform to deliver a fully auditable Best Interest-centric illustration process, which ensures the hybrid long term care products are compared on a “like-for-like basis” specific to the actual client case. This fills a critical need in the sector and has been a long time coming. Increasingly, brokerage general agencies and specialist long term care distribution firms are required to implement Best Interest processes, platforms and auditability within their internal operations by key financial institutions and channels.

Another big win for brokerage distribution is the unification of permanent life insurance and hybrid long term care products within a single workflow, on a single platform. Long term care risk today can be managed through a traditional long term care policy, an asset-based policy or a life policy with a long term care rider. Ensight’s wide breadth of product class coverage across permanent life products and the asset-based long term care products will enable brokerage to provide financial professionals with a broad scope of options. All of this built around a more efficient illustration process enabling brokerage to focus on what really matters—client case discussions, growing relationships and closing the coverage gap. Sales Illustration platform information is available at https://ensightcloud.com/.

Last month saw the release of the Global Consumer Study, new research carried out on consumers across the world and their attitudes towards insurance. 12,728 people from 22 global markets were asked about a range of topics, including: Buying and claiming insurance, purchase triggers, causes of stress, road and cyber insurance, mental and physical health and the use of wellness apps. As part of the study, researchers surveyed over 1,000 U.S.-based consumers, enabling us to build a picture of the modern American and what they are seeking in their insurance experience.

Americans are happy to share data
U.S. respondents showed a willingness to share data with insurers to enable them to assess risk. Interestingly, 80.5 percent of them felt either comfortable or very comfortable in sharing information about their employment with their insurance provider. This was followed up by openness around sharing previous claims data (79.2 percent) and openness on sharing data from health check-ups (76.7 percent). The possibility of a discount was the main driver for this, with three quarters of U.S. respondents interested in possible reduced insurance premiums in exchange for this data.

U.S. consumers love a health app
Findings from the study show the use of health and fitness apps has remained strong in 2022 and shows no signs of declining, with more than half of global respondents saying they have a general fitness app (51 percent). In the U.S., the popularity of such apps rises nearly another 10 percent. Curiously, U.S. women seem to have a far greater appetite for general fitness apps than their male counterparts, with 68.9 percent of American women owning one, compared to just 45.5 percent of American men. And perhaps surprisingly, the data demonstrate that Boomers and Gen X use general fitness apps more than Millennials and Gen Z in the U.S.

Consumers want multiple claim points
Multiple access points are being used by consumers in the U.S. when making insurance claims. These methods range broadly from online (33.4 percent) and email (16.3 percent), to agents (19.3 percent), apps (14.9 percent), and more. However, despite a growing movement towards digitization, the most common claim method for American consumers remains a phone call (45.1 percent). This bucks the global trend, where online claims are the preferred method. With this in mind, it should also be acknowledged that some U.S. insurers are yet to offer online claims capability.

Download the full research at www.remarkgroup.com. ReMark is a worldwide InsurTech consultancy specializing in consumer insights, marketing campaigns and tech solutions.

Plum Life delivers more fruit for less labor
In today’s life insurance sales environment, advisors are working more than ever remotely and digitally with their clients. This can lead to a lack of personal touch and critical guidance through the sale, not to mention the difficulties of lead generation and client follow-up as expressed by many agents. But it does not have to be that way… Plum Life was designed exclusively for agents and to allow them to sell completely online. As a user, the experience is simple, instinctive, and demonstrates an understanding of how agents sell. Their platform also houses all functions in one location, making it easy for agents to place business. Plum Life automates appointments, submitting and placing applications, tracking commissions and helps agents manage their inforce clients. Because they understand the entire sales process, they have been able to digitize the entire process allowing agents to customize the experience to a specific person or case. Helping agents sell life insurance is at the core of what they do.

Plum Life offers a diverse product suite from A-rated carriers, all designed for a digital agent sale. Their growing list of products and carriers boasts both an instant issue and accelerated term options, whole life, AD&D and two flavors of final expense. Registration is free with Plum Life, which makes it a good option for independent agents. It is intuitive and easy to navigate, with a sleek interface designed specifically for mobile use, allowing agents to start selling quickly. Agents also get access to powerful lead generation and marketing tools, and case management is automated.

Plum Life also keeps agents, and their clients, in the loop as they go through the sales process. With email reminders and text alerts, agents can quickly and easily stay on top of things and clients are reminded to take required actions. When asked, a Plum Life representative stated this functionality is a “big differentiator and helps drive conversion.” While there are a few other digital platforms available for life insurance sales, many of them are focused on direct-to-consumer sales and put the agent experience secondary, sometimes trying to cut them out completely. Others simply do not have the breadth of products or tools available from Plum Life. For today’s agent who is looking to work with clients digitally, Plum Life has a lot to offer. Agents can register at www.HelloPlum.com.

UComplete is seamless in the carrier’s life fulfillment process
A powerful model for straight-through processing for life insurance digital sales is an “Agent to Customer Self-Service Process.” ApplicInt has a product “UComplete” that simplifies the eApp process while engaging the agent with their client. The agent runs a multi-carrier quote and completes a drop ticket (then hands off to the client). This is done by the agent who emails a link to the customer to complete Part A of the life insurance application online. The Part B medical questions part has options where the customer can complete, or can be completed via tele-interview or by an examiner performing a digital Paramed exam. The customer will securely eSign the forms in the same experience. If the customer has any questions, then they can do a real-time chat with a call center for assistance as needed. There is a warm transfer to a call center to schedule an exam if needed. This is a seamless process. The forms and data are automatically sent to the carrier in-good-order. The agent is notified of the status via email. The agent is then freed up to focus on sales.

There is a second model for ApplicInt’s UComplete, which is a carrier direct to consumer process. This makes it easy for consumers to apply for life insurance from a carrier’s website. It would start with a secure login process on the carrier’s website. Getting a login is a quick and painless process, but very secure. Once the consumer logs in, they run a term quote. There is a health analyzer available to use so the client can be placed in the correct underwriting category, which impacts the premium quoted. If the client is approved as applied for, then the placement ratio is increased significantly. Leveraging the same functionality of UComplete above, the consumer completes Part A of the life insurance application online. The Part B medical questions are options which can be completed via tele-interview or by an examiner performing a digital Paramed exam. The customer will securely eSign the forms in the same experience. If the customer has any questions, then they can do a real-time chat with a call center for assistance as needed. There is a warm transfer to a call center to schedule an exam if needed. This is a seamless process. The forms and data are automatically sent to the carrier in-good-order.

The flexibility of U*Complete’s seamless integration is because ApplicInt is the only solution provider that has a call center solution “CallComplete” and a digital Paramed platform “ExamComplete.” Any step of the process can also be integrated using an API into a carrier’s supported system so that their workflow remains the same. Other features where ApplicInt transforms the life insurance process includes integrating with a carrier’s automated underwriting process. The ApplicInt platform can also do scoring of data based on carrier rules. The end-to-end process starts with easy access to an agency or carrier portal supporting single sign-on to delivering the data and forms to the carrier in-good-order. This reduces the overall process by five days. The ApplicInt fulfillment software solutions are used by the industry’s largest Paramedical providers. You can visit www.applicint-usa.com to learn more.

When we talk about sending life applications electronically in-good-order, it’s not just transmitting a data file to the carrier. There needs to be a deeper understanding of the life carrier’s policy administration system and that carrier’s fulfillment process. The eApp data could first be sent to a call center or paramedical provider as interim steps before arriving to the carrier. There are multiple models for the fulfillment process of life apps. In these models, underwriting can be accelerated or automated. Today there are always one or more data calls for automating underwriting like Rx scripts, MIB, identity verification, and now EHR. Below we will take a look at two eApp vendors that have deep relationships with policy admin system and underwriting engines. Also, of the many policy admin systems out there, one is very focused on APIs to easily exchange information with eApp solution providers.

eApp and New Business Underwriting
iGO^®, iPipeline’s market leading eApp, leveraged by the industry to submit in-good-order applications has been the eApp of choice for the life insurance market for over a decade.

With more than 11 million eApp transactions completed over the last three years, iGO is an omni-channel eApp used in captive, brokerage and consumer-focused channels and is used by over 300,000 agents and advisors per year, representing over 55 carriers and 300 distributors. These agents and advisors use iGO to sell products ranging from life, LTCI, disability, and final expense to Medicare supplement and annuities to help secure their customers’ financial futures. When agents and advisors use iGO with iPipeline’s LifePipe Term Quote engine, iSolve® Permanent Quote engine, or Illustrations, they receive access to iPipeline’s full suite of tools for optimizing the sales process. iGO is vital in reducing cycle time and increasing placement ratios through the use of easy and intuitive reflexive-based questions and rules to ensure all needed information is captured up-front—ensuring a 100 percent in-good-order application and enabling straight through processing.

iGO comes with many out-of-the-box integrations to ensure accurate and clean data is captured during the application process. The eApp validates mailing and email addresses, as well as bank account information used for premium payment. It also comes with third-party integrations such as LexisNexis, HIPAASpace, Milliman, and others to help supplement the data captured in iGO, and allow carriers to jump-start the underwriting process.

iGO can be seamlessly integrated with iPipeline’s Resonant® new business and underwriting platform for unlocking point-of-sale decisioning and workbench capabilities that can significantly streamline the new business process. iGO can also be integrated with numerous other new business underwriting systems, as well as reinsurance engines from MunichRe, SwissRe, RGA, and more, for point-of-sale decisioning and automated underwriting. iGO data can also seamlessly flow through to carriers’ policy administration systems such as LifePro, ALIP, Faustin, DXC, or CyberLife—through direct integrations, or through Resonant. iGO’s integrations with these policy administration systems can also provide in-force policy data for supplementing the eApp process. For agencies using iPipeline’s Agency Integrator solutions, iGO cases can be integrated into Agency Integrator to allow for out-of-the-box case approval.

iPipeline’s iGO e-App provides a market-leading, comprehensive solution for digitizing, and simplifying, the life insurance application and underwriting process—and optimizing business operations. To learn more, please visit https://www.ipipeline.com/products/igo/.

Straight Through Processing Through Low Code
Equisoft/apply is an end-to-digital point of sale solution for all buying channels—carriers, BGAs, advisors, D2C—even paper if you want. It’s an easy-to-use eApplication for any device that asks questions defined by the carrier, quickly captures data, creates an instant application and submits for real-time decisions. Equisoft/apply has the latest, most responsive UI-UX and low code-no code applications. These features make it possible to easily configure a unique insurance buying journey. That makes these next-gen solutions ready to power your D2C initiatives and grow digital sales. This flexible eApplication solution means you don’t have to settle for old-fashioned question flows and clunky user interfaces, instead you can create superior sales experiences for your advisors and clients.

There are three policy admin system (PAS) integrations: At the end of the app it submits the signed app which is taken into the carrier’s PAS for new business processing–through underwriting, suitability checks, etc. When completing the app it generates real time quotes by integrating with Oracle’s Insurance Policy Administration system (OIPA) to send data like age, state, and gender so premium can be calculated and the quote returned to /apply.

Equisoft/apply has instant decision integrations. Between Part 1 and Part 2 processing /apply can get an underwriting decision. It integrates with the PAS to get an instant decision and send it in real time to the advisor so that they can proceed with the application if the buyer likes the quote.

Low-Code Configuration of Your Insurance Buying Journey

• Low-code supports greater control than no-code tools while keeping speed to market.
• Quickly and easily design the digital application form to match your insurance products and facilitate straight-through-processing.

Optimize your buying journeys: Equisoft/apply gives you the flexibility to easily optimize your application processes across all channels. These eApps are low code optimized for insurance buying journeys, giving you ultimate control over building engaging sales flows. This means you can easily create apps that are unique to your company and products. This results in better customer experience, fewer dropouts and faster policy decisions.

There is customization to a carrier’s particular product and buying journey. The objective is to create one common experience for buying, replacements, upsell, and inforce policy changes. It makes instant decisions and issue in seconds on any device, which facilitates straight-through processing, in-good-order validation for instant issue, and eSignature reduces drop-offs. Straight through processing is the new standard for eApplications so that they should integrate seamlessly with your existing internal and external systems, enabling you to get the validations needed to reduce the number of not-in-good-order (NIGO) apps and make policy decisions in real time. Analytics track completion rates, and diagnose and address issues in the buying process. Progress tracking, clear UI for the user and analytics for the IT teams is made available.

Another feature is to support direct-to-consumer (D2C). Being able to easily and quickly create eApps tailored to your buying journeys means that you can create one common customer and advisor experience for buying, replacements, upsell, and policy changes. These eApps can become the front-end of your D2C offerings, providing modern UI/UX that is consistent across the board. And the built-in configuration tools are all you will need to maintain your applications without having to write any code.

APIs Are Fundamental to Creating Insurance Ecosystems
From a broker’s perspective, there are several things to know about application programming interfaces (APIs). First is that they are engineered to facilitate integrations between systems and data sources, and this includes everything from the big backend insurance core systems down to data from IoT devices, mobile, usage-based insurance apps, fitness trackers, and the like.

Even more important though is how brokers benefit from API-first enterprise insurance systems. Those systems are much more likely to offer pre-fill, accessing high-quality data to speed the completion of digitalized applications and decrease or eliminate errors and fraud. APIs also enable digital communications options that didn’t exist even a few years ago. As a result, API-first systems can be used to create dramatically better workflows, leading to faster underwriting cycles, shorter sales cycles, and much less paper.

This may be the most important bit: APIs can help dramatically reduce the administrative load for agents and brokers, giving them more time to do the important work of managing relationships with both insurers and the insureds. APIs are what enable agents and brokers to access and update customer and prospect information–ideally in real time–and offer similar self-service options to insureds.

At a higher level, APIs are foundational to creating insurance ecosystems. The most ready examples of ecosystems are Amazon and eBay. Shoppers go there for an opportunity to consider many products, review their attributes, as well as add-ons from partners and service providers. Ecosystems recognize customers, collect their histories and make informed suggestions appropriate to their interests, demographics, and more. Purchases are accelerated by virtue of being timely, personalized, and digital. Here is great three-minute video overview of insurance ecosystems.

“Ecosystems help brokers by offering a seamless customer experience and fostering relationships in a moment of need. Ecosystems also help brokers expand capacity for revenue-generating activities because they spend less time on administrative tasks,” says Karen Valdez, head of life and annuity product marketing at EIS. “Insureds benefit from better customer experiences and personalized offerings, which leads to increased customer retention, referrals, and satisfaction. APIs help ambitious insurers bring it all together and offer real customer centricity without complexity.”

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

The digital life insurance sales experience is continuously improving in both agent facing or consumer facing software applications. So what are some of the technologies responsible for these enhancements and why should you know? Look, I don’t want to scare you from reading the rest of this article with technical terms like Electronic Health Records, No-Code software solutions, and APIs. When addressing the digital point of sales solutions to carriers, distributors, or advisors, you need to understand the business problem these technologies solve without having to dive deep into the technology. With this basic understanding, you are better informed and feel more confident in investing in the software solutions that will help sell more life insurance.

Transforming Consumer Experience with the Power of Digital Health Data
So, what could the new customer experience look like for buying life insurance? First, a potential customer meets with an agent to discuss their situation and financial needs in the event of their untimely death, recommending the best life insurance product for their situation and providing a quote. The individual then makes a decision to move forward and, with their agent, they get started on the application and add their health info to the part two. The agent sends the application to the carrier and it goes to the underwriting department. Then, the customer is almost done. An electronic medical record is searched for and comes back within a day. The underwriting team makes a decision and the policy is sent to the customer to officially purchase, just a few days after submitting their application. And, now, one more family has peace of mind that they’re financially covered.

Human API is dedicated to being a key player in this customer experience. I have written several articles about Electronic Health Data (EHR) and Human API has always been a critical player in the discussion, but there’s much more. Human API is not only consumer-forward, not just an EHR provider, not just helpful in replacing APSs, not just sharing better underwriting data, not just tech-agile and API-driven—Human API is a critical partner for carriers seeking to showcase the best in consumer experience and to accomplish their most strategic transformation goals.

• Defining the future of consumer experiences and interactions—across all touch points.
• Expanding and accelerating transformation to better support distribution partners and reinsurers.
• Seamlessly turning data into intelligence by possessing a flexible and scalable data infrastructure for modern, fast and efficient processes.

Here is a quote from a top carrier about leading the changes and best of breed experience, “Human API’s platform further expands our ability to provide our members the best experience buying life insurance. We were the first company to use digital health data and are continually looking for ways to improve our processes—including increasing the percentage of medical records we can receive digitally which cuts down on the time that it takes to get life insurance coverage.”—Christopher Flint, senior vice president and GM, Life Insurance, at USAA. For more information about Human API, visit www.humanapi.co.

How No-Code eApp and EHR Saves Time
Technology that allows for rapid decision-making, the functionality of a no-code platform, and a customer-service driven approach to integration is what Management Research Services (MRS) has created as an industry innovator. Many underwriting decisions are easy ones. The issue is that it requires analysis of massive data sets to arrive at the decision. Technology improvements offered in the MRS no-code platform will never eliminate the need for underwriters; they just eliminate the need for underwriters to spend hours upon hours of reading and scanning the intel provided for each client.

Consider the recent history and changes in record-keeping across the medical industry. Generations of paper records yielded to the first-generation Electronic Medical Record (EMR). EMRs are not standardized across providers, they are really an in-house chart—something of a relic from the days before cloud computing. The lack of standardization means there is a lot to manually unpack and interpret.

The process today has now been turned upside down: Most underwriting decisions are already made. The applications become about seeing how and where each applicant qualifies, according to each client’s pre-programmed rules and decisions. The result is rapid underwriting decisions made at the point of sale; over 95 percent of applicants are processed within just minutes.

The example of the rise of EMRs provides a behind-the-scenes way technology began saving time in application processing. It is notable that where MRS is truly going to save time for insurance carriers or third-party vendors is with the sleek functionality of the no-code platform. Their system bypasses an expensive and time-consuming step in the process by removing the need to work with developers or IT. They have already taken care of that step for you; no programming or coding experience is required in the process. This results in their clients becoming empowered.

MRS has a customer service driven approach which means rapid integration times for systems customized from the ground-up and with minimal maintenance costs. They want to collaborate with you to build the platform or E-App that best serves your organizational and client needs. Click here to learn more or request a demo.

APIs Bridge Together Systems for a Better Life Insurance Sales Experience
As I continue educating the industry on APIs, I reached out to Paperless Solutions Group. Bill Walasek, VP of Sales at Paperless Solutions Group recently spoke with an industry veteran who asked about APIs. Bill asked him to talk about how he did business a few years ago. He recounted the days when, meeting with a prospect, he would scribble down some notes during the meeting and bring those notes back to the office. He would hand those notes over to his staff with some direction on how to proceed in regards to coverage. At that point, like any good businessman, he would move on to the next prospect. He was really not involved with the case unless something unusual came up like a rating or decline. Bottom line, a month or two out, he looked at his commission statement to see if the case was placed. Sound a bit familiar?

After this handoff, a lot goes on behind the scenes. This includes storing the data he collected (likely in a file cabinet or maybe a spreadsheet), getting a quote, filling out an application, submitting it to a carrier, waiting for a response, and if placed, finally receiving a policy and the commission. Take a second, think about how much data has moved through this process and how many different and disparate systems that the data must be ingested into.

The likelihood of information being lost or improperly entered is great and the time to move this data around is even greater. What was and is needed is a way to bridge all this information to systems that can accept it without keystrokes, resources, and wasted time. This is why APIs are so critical for our industry.

We, as an industry, have just begun to see the power of the use of APIs. Other industries have been doing this for years. APIs pull the appropriate data needed, at the time that it is needed, and then move it to the correct place in the next step of the process. So we are now getting to a place where you can take prospect information and feed it into a CRM where it can then be sent to a quoting system. Once the appropriate quote has been agreed upon, that information can then be delivered into an e-application which is sent to the carrier and stored in the CRM. The carrier can then ingest that information into their systems and send the agent status updates that can be stored and displayed wherever they wish. If there are outstanding requirements, those pieces of information or forms can be collected quickly so the case does not go stale. Finally, once the case is placed, policies can be delivered electronically and, yes, the commission almost instantaneously. Aren’t APIs great?

“At Paperless Solutions Group (PSG), we embrace APIs. In fact, we utilized APIs before APIs were cool. All our solutions are API driven from eApplication, to quoting with underwriting (eValuate), to requirements gathering (eRequirement), to eSignature. While these solutions provide a seamless experience, we understand that there are other solutions that you have invested much time, resources, and dollars implementing. What APIs provide is the ability to play nice in the sandbox with other solution providers. And this brings up what should be considered when implementing any solutions: How does it affect what I do today and how will it work with our vision moving forward?” To learn more about PSG solutions visit www.paperlesssolutions.net.

There are many benefits to using Artificial Intelligence (AI) in underwriting life insurance. This is a growing trend weaving AI into the fabric of underwriting decision engines and workbench technology. So it’s time to take the next step to remove tech people from the process and make it possible for the underwriting experts and business side to take control using no-code solutions. AI is also expanding in sales and digital marketing in general. However, because insurance is sold and not bought, the focus is to provide advisors with easy access to sales and lead tracking tools using a dashboard user experience. Also, there should be focus on specific sales tools that “visually” help the advisor explain the benefits of the product. This will ultimately close more business.

Personalization: Insurtech’s Secret Sauce for Life Underwriting
The insurance industry is stuck in a sort of technological amber. Many companies have taken their offerings online while others use software solutions such as Slack, MS Teams, Google Suite, or others to encourage collegiality and efficiencies, but underwriters are still relegated to their desks for hours reading applications and supporting documentation to approve or deny coverage based on the data provided. It’s slow and boring, but it has to be done to keep the company afloat.

Eugene Shafronsky is the head of strategy at thinktum™, an Insurtech enabler. His background in underwriting and deep understanding of the state of the industry means he knows the technology at play and how it can all work together to everyone’s advantage. “Underwriters are vital to the insurance business. We believe though that, in the future, most underwriting will be done using technology.” He adds, “This doesn’t remove underwriters from the process, but human brains—while complex, and highly capable—need rest from repetitive or routine processes. A solution such as thinktum’s liz life suite can free up underwriters to do more challenging and rewarding tasks such as designing new insurance products or contributing to the company’s bottom line in more creative ways.”

Personalization is why Shafronsky is so bullish on their technology suite. “We see many companies trying to make the application process faster, but faster is not enough. And focusing on outdated static models of yes/no answers is also not enough, because then you lose the most important aspect—accuracy. By using our approach, personalization can be applied to every application and the approach is intuitive, you can achieve much greater accuracy and better detail on risk assessment. And, if you think about it, creating a personalized approach can also actually make it faster as a byproduct.

“We see, most commonly, a lack of flexibility by companies to make the change technologically. And pure no-code is the solution. Our no-code suite uses a graphic canvas that allows non-developers to move boxes, drag and drop, and connect them in different ways, then set up specific rules that are predefined to create any flow they want. This significantly shortens implementation and optimization times. Think of it as the WordPress of AI. It’s all about the interface in front and robust technology in behind.” Learn more about thinktum’s pure no-code liz life suite at https://www.thinktum.ai.

Simplify the Life Sales Experience for Advisors
In a world where artificial intelligence and machine learning seem to dominate media headlines, it has become a common misconception that technology is out to replace human interaction. But Finaeo believes the opposite to be true: “Applying for life insurance is an inherently complex process, and we believe that the value of advisor relationships—with their knowledge, trust, empathy, and support—cannot be replaced by machines. Our goal is simple: We want to see a world where insurance is accessible to everyone, and we believe that can be achieved by putting the right technology in the hands of advisors who care.”

Finaeo is an all-in-one, turn-key, life insurance sales software on a mission to bridge the digital divide between carriers, agencies, advisors and clients. Founded in 2016 in Toronto, Finaeo began their journey by partnering with life insurance agencies across Canada to empower their advisors with a more efficient means of doing business. By early 2020, Finaeo had helped advisors to place over $1billion in coverage for Canadian families. And in 2021, with demand increasing, they launched into the USA—operating as a tech partner with IMOs and BGAs across all 50 states.

The core of Finaeo’s solution is simple: Automate remedial tasks in the sales process and instantly provide product recommendations, giving advisors more time to build client relationships and provide expert advice. They offer an end-to-end system where advisors can build websites, digitally onboard clients, need-assess, maintain records, as well as search, quote, compare and apply from their extensive marketplace of over 30 carriers and 500 products.

As clients demand more asynchronous interaction with their insurance providers, Finaeo is uniquely positioned to partner with BGAs to enhance their digital identities and expand reach. To learn more about Finaeo for your BGA visit http://www.finaeo.com or contact Kyle Langstaff, director of business development at kyle.langstaff@finaeo.com.

Sell more Disability Insurance with a Presentation Sales Tool
Many BGAs, GAs, IMOs, etc. across the country have a similar question on their mind, “How do we get more advisors selling more DI plans?” This is a question that’s been on the top of many BGA’s minds for the past two decades. Another way to phrase this question might be, “How do we provide advisors with client specific DI presentation tools to help them better position, sell, and close far more of the DI illustrations we provide them?” When you look at the core elements to having a highly effective income protection (DI) conversation with clients, advisors must be able to quickly position the need, demonstrate the client’s problem, present new plan solutions in an easy-to-understand way, and put premium into perspective.

The vast majority of advisors are trying to accomplish a version of this by using DI illustrations, statistics sheets, and general non-client-specific marketing materials. These items clearly have their role but, when it really comes down to it, advisors typically experience a wave of objections from clients using these types of tools and presentation approach, which makes most advisors simply struggle with or avoid this critical topic of risk mitigation with their clients.

OneProtection’s DI presentation software is a tool that helps advisors take this friction off the table by allowing them to present the income protection story to their clients in a simple yet visually powerful way. This drastically improves the advisors ability to mitigate or even eliminate the most common client objections while simultaneously increasing their closing percentages and case sizes. This is music to a BGA’s ears because the more advisors they have selling more DI plans through them the better. Everyone wins.

Even though OneProtection’s DI Software is not specifically designed for the BGA per se, it is designed for the advisors and insurance professionals who are doing their business with them. Through OneProtection’s BGA Affiliation program, they are able to strategically partner with BGAs across the country with joint marketing efforts to help advisors across the country drastically grow their DI sales production. To learn more about OneProtection visit https://www.oneprotection.tech.

We see what I like to call “digital insurance companies” and think instant issue and direct-to-consumer for low priced limited benefit products. There is so much more that many people in the industry don’t know about these companies including myself, until back in April I had the honor to moderate a panel at the LIMRA Life Insurance Conference in Tampa. On the panel were leaders from Bestow, Ethos, and Ladder Life. Also this year I was contacted by an old friend and colleague from when I worked at Genworth who introduced me to Asteya, which is an insurance company with a digital platform for products like disability insurance. What I have learned from all these companies is that they each have their own unique digital model for selling insurance, powerful insurance products, advanced AI technology for underwriting, and are in other distribution channels like independent brokerage. I see this as a trend that is growing, and there are several other companies out there competing. Today we are going to focus on three unique digital sales platforms.

My company, InsurTech Express, is currently marketing Asteya’s digital platform. I asked Chad Ourso who leads distribution sales and Noelle Bartlett, life distribution marketing, to explain the Asteya offering and digital platform. Let’s dive in.

If you had to guess what was more likely to happen, getting injured due to accident or illness and not being able to work versus passing away, you would likely say the former. But, did you know that you’re 3.5 times more likely to need disability insurance than you are life? Yet only 29 percent of people have disability coverage compared to 44 percent that have individual life insurance policies. Some believe that this gap in the market is due to three different issues: Poor positioning, lack of education, and accessibility.

Compared to life, car, and health insurance, the term “disability insurance” is out of place because it doesn’t make known what it’s protecting—your income! We don’t call life insurance “death insurance,” right? Asteya believes that the term “income insurance” better represents what is being insured and why it’s necessary to have.

Looking at the overall market, there’s an accessibility issue. Historically, income insurance was marketed and sold exclusively to white collar professionals with high incomes. The purchasing process was laborious and included medical exams, bloodwork, and had an application process that could take up to 90 days. Luckily, thanks to technology and new types of products, income insurance is now more accessible than ever.

With new instant issue products that are tech-first and use AI-powered underwriting engines, the speed in which a policy can be sold (agent assisted quote to issue in 15 minutes) is matched with the ease of case management and administration handled through an online dashboard. These are likely some of the reasons why five-year benefit periods are a big growth segment, making up 17 percent of U.S. sales, when historically it was much lower according to Milliman’s 2021 annual survey. Paired with the workforce now demanding access to non-employer sponsored benefits, freelancers, independent contractors, and blue-collared professionals are receptive and excited to be educated on and get access to income insurance.

So, whether you’re interested in including income insurance (DI) into the suite of products you sell or want to see how one insurtech company is using technology to standout and move forward, check out asteya.world to learn more and contact Chad Ourso at chad.ourso@asteya.world.

Ethos’ Digital Ecosystem
After reaching out to Marty Schaefer, chief distribution officer of Ethos, he offered to tell his story and discuss the innovative technology of Ethos: “In 1998, I started in this industry as a retail agent, meeting families at kitchen tables late at night. I helped deliver the true, democratized value of the product we sell, providing a critical safety net for grieving families. But the industry faced several intractable challenges. The agent base was beginning to age and shrink rapidly. Remaining agents faced time and resource constraints selling a high-touch product that took weeks or months of underwriting. These constraints meant I could only reach a handful of families in a typical week.

“Last year I joined Ethos because I saw a compelling solution to these long-standing issues. I saw a 100 percent digital ecosystem that eliminates all of the most challenging things about buying insurance—for both consumers and agents. It makes medical exams a thing of the past, offering affordable coverage for almost everyone in just minutes. Ethos’ underwriting engine analyzes 300,000+ data points from authorized sources in real time. It works together with our online application, featuring 1,300 reflexive health and lifestyle questions, to determine the best product fit for clients. Using this system, we can instantly approve about 95 percent of applicants ages 18-85. We do it by working with top carriers to offer the broadest range of digital term and whole life products in the industry, some created for our proprietary process.

“In a world where it’s impossible for a financial advisor or insurance agent to meet every consumer’s needs, this fully automated solution now gives agents a way to provide the best underwriting review of every applicant with little to no overhead. This expands our ability to offer life insurance to more consumers, growing margins, efficiency and scale. Agents and agencies are starting to envision the multiplier effect that can have for their business. They see that concurrently to their brokerage appointments, their team can now present life insurance to 100 more people and protect 50 families per week versus just a handful in person. They can now meet that democratized need within time and revenue constraints. Our robust agent portal and custom URL make it simple for them to manage and grow their business.

It’s the most powerful, all-encompassing instant issue buy box in the U.S.—and a tipping point that’s just beginning. We see the greatest opportunity ahead in working with our brokerage partners to reach today’s 80 million uninsured and under-insured Americans.” To discuss the Ethos opportunity for your BGA, please contact Marty Schafer, marty.schafer@getethos.com, or Jason Speigel, head of life distribution, at jason.speigel@getethos.com.”

Bestow’s End-To-End Digital Term Life Insurance Experience
Many of you may know Steve Robinson, chief distribution officer at Bestow. Steve is an industry veteran. I see Steve often at industry events. Steve and his team took time out from their busy schedules to share what differentiates Bestow and an inside look at their end-to-end digital life insurance experience.

Selling life insurance has been historically tedious, with processes that waste precious time for agents all while they risk losing sales when customers tire of the back and forth. Even the most seemingly straightforward transaction, like purchasing a basic term life insurance policy, can take weeks or months. This tech laggard experience is not ideal when people have the power to purchase almost anything online and see it arrive on their doorstep the next day. It shouldn’t take weeks to buy anything, including your term life insurance policy.

Since time is money, this inevitably shifted advisors’ focus to more affluent and, therefore, more profitable customers, leaving middle- and lower-income Americans uninformed about their coverage needs and critically underinsured. The industry must adopt technology solutions that meet the needs and expectations of today’s customers to break this trend. And life insurance carriers must equip agents with the tools to succeed in today’s more competitive sales environment.

Enter Bestow, the leading life insurance technology company built to make life insurance more accessible to millions of people who need it. Bestow is building technology to digitize the industry at large and has created an end-to-end digital term life insurance experience that empowers agents to make faster sales by solving complex industry pain points. This enables agents to expand the life insurance market they serve and provide a better experience to their clients. Customers who purchase a term life insurance policy on Bestow’s platform can apply and, if approved, bind their coverage in as little as five minutes.

Key technologies that Bestow provides:

• The Online Application: a customer-driven, fully digital application with instant-decision underwriting and end to end journey from approval to payment.
• Agent Link: a unique co-branded website solution that gives agents an easy way to share the application with clients and prospects.
• Agent Application: an application platform built for call center sales done completely over the phone in minutes, that provides agents more control over the customer experience and application journey.
• Protect: enables partners to embed a fully-hosted, 100 percent digital term life insurance buying experience either through API integration with a customizable, white-labeled offering or through a simpler plug-and-play solution.

Today, Bestow goes to market in the brokerage channel as an agency and third party administrator (TPA) selling policies issued by North American Company for Life and Health Insurance.^®* Customers can apply for and, if approved, purchase up to $1.5 million in coverage in as little as five minutes within the partner’s application or website. A medical exam is never required. In addition, the company has successfully become a nationally licensed life insurance company. With licenses in 48 states and the District of Columbia, Bestow Life Insurance Company (BLIC) will be able to design and launch its own innovative financial protection products in the near future.

Bestow is committed to giving agents the tools they need to make a sale in minutes, not months. Digitization enables advisors to reach more customers by leveraging technology that eliminates paperwork and case management. Providing a convenient, frictionless process to clients can be even more impactful to the advisor than competitive compensation. When agents have this capability at their fingertips, it enables them to help more clients while expanding their business to new markets and additional revenue streams. To learn more contact Steve Robinson at stephen@bestow.com.

Reference
*Life insurance quotes provided by Bestow Agency, LLC dba Bestow Insurance Services in CA, who is the licensed agent. Term Life Insurance Policies offered by Bestow are issued on policy form LS181 and LS182, or state version including all applicable endorsements and riders, by North American Company for Life and Health Insurance,® Administrative Office, One Sammons Plaza, Sioux Falls, SD 57193. Products or issues ages may not be available in all jurisdictions. Limitations or restrictions may apply. Not available in New York. Our application asks about your lifestyle and health to determine eligibility in order to avoid requiring a medical exam.